Railroads are typically constructed to include a pair of elongated, substantially parallel rails, which are coupled to a plurality of laterally extending ties. The ties are disposed on a ballast bed of hard particulate material, such as gravel. Over time, normal wear and tear on the railroad may require track maintenance operations to correct rail deviations. Exemplary rail maintenance operations include ballast tamping, spike pulling, spike driving, anchor spreading, anchor squeezing, track stabilizing, crib booming and tie extracting. Such maintenance operations often require rail workers to operate on or near track, thus presenting safety concerns when operating on live track, i.e., track that is used by independent rail vehicles.
Live track presents a safety concern when a rail vehicle approaches rail workers operating on the track. Conventional rail safety systems have heretofore used a radio for communicating between rail vehicles operating on live track and rail workers operating on the live track. The typical implementation in the past is to use a 900 MHz radio for communication. That is, the rail vehicle communicates with rail workers via its 900 MHz radio that it is operating on the track. By receiving this communication, the rail workers are alerted to the rail vehicle's presence and are able to move to safety and allow the rail vehicle to pass. In this implementation, the rail workers also use a 900 MHz radio to communicate to the rail vehicle that there are rail workers in the area. The problem with conventional systems, however, is that precise distance measurements between the rail vehicle and the workers are not provided. Accordingly, there are inefficiencies with respect to the amount of time the workers are removed from the track. For example, communication between the rail vehicle and the workers may take place well in advance of when the rail vehicle actually presents a safety concern for the workers. Accordingly, improved methods for providing for the safety of such rail workers, while also improving work efficiency such as through the use of precise distance measurements, are thus desired.